Here's everything we know about the Burger King employee who was fired after going viral for running an entire restaurant by herself during a 12-hour shift.
The worker, 25-year-old mother-of-three Nykia Hamilton, became the face of fast-food burnout after a TikTok video showed her sprinting between the grill, fryer, counter, and drive-thru at a Burger King in Columbia, South Carolina.
With no coworkers on shift, she handled every task alone: flipping burgers, pouring drinks, bagging orders, doing prep work, washing dishes, and cleaning floors.
“I be missing out on my kids’ lives, and I work a lot... I have to provide for them, but I really don’t have time to spend with them - and it hurts me a lot,” Hamilton said in an emotional interview with WACH Fox 57.
The video went viral on social mediaThe clip blew up online and has been viewed more than 215,600 times.
Hamilton later explained in an interview that the staffing crisis stemmed from a coworker quitting on short notice.
“[My co-worker] has been here since 11 o’clock and will stay until close at 11. We just don’t have any employees. Nobody wants to work anymore,” she said.
Despite the impossible workload, she remained grateful for her manager. “I wouldn’t have a job because I have a record, and it’s hard to find a job with a record. But by the grace of God, she gave me a job,” she said. “That’s the only reason why I stayed — for her.”
After her story gained national attention, Hamilton said she was abruptly fired.
“They [Burger King] fired me because I’ve been late because of my kids,” she explained on her TikTok page. “My kids come first. Y’all don’t pay for no babysitter or nothing.”
Burger King responded to the situation with a statement issued to the New York Post, emphasizing that no employee should be left to run a restaurant alone.
“No Team Member should ever be left to run a restaurant alone, even for a short period of time. That’s not how we operate, and we’re disappointed that our policy, which requires more than one Team Member to work per shift, wasn’t followed,” the company said.
The chain also confirmed that staffing and disciplinary decisions rest with the franchise owner, not corporate management.
"Terminations are the decision of the franchisees who own and operate the BK restaurant. In this situation, the franchisee confirmed that the individual involved is no longer employed due to repeated attendance issues.
"While we can’t share more on individual personnel matters, we’re focused on making sure every restaurant, whether company or franchise-run, has the staffing and support needed to take care of our Team Members and deliver the kind of experience our Guests expect," they added.
After being let go from the job, Hamilton took to Facebook to clarify the timeline of her viral shift. She explained that she didn’t work for 12 hours straight as some had assumed.
"When I ended up working at Burger King by myself - no, I did not work 12 hours," she said, noting that she had worked her first job from 9AM to about 2 or 3PM before heading to Burger King.
Upon arriving at the restaurant, the mom learned that her co-worker had quit, leaving her to handle the restaurant alone.
She also revealed that she had texted her general manager, who was out of town, about the staffing issue. The GM passed the message to the district manager, who reportedly responded with: "Oh, that's too sad," but no help was sent.
Hamilton ended up working from 2PM until closing at 11PM that night.
A Broader Conversation About Fast-Food LaborThe 25-year-old's story has sparked widespread discussion about labor conditions in the fast-food industry.
Many of her supporters have rallied behind her and called for better treatment and working conditions for employees in similar situations.
One person wrote: “These jobs [are] literally exploiting their workers and people [are] tired of struggling to make ends meet.” Another added: “She needs a tip jar. This is unfair to her. She shouldn’t have to do this and run a whole business, restaurant, alone.”
Following her firing, Hamilton launched a GoFundMe campaign to help support her family, which has raised over $110,000 as of the time of writing.